Question:
Prime Age workers 1 MILLION less than the day Obama too office in 2009. So how reliable is this 5.9% 'Official" unemployment number?
2014-10-04 17:32:00 UTC
Prime Working years: Age 25-54

August 2014 - 95.6 Million Employed
January 2009 - 96.6 Million Employed

( using the following bls data search tool )
http://data.bls.gov/pdq/querytool.jsp?survey=ln
Civilian non-institutionalized population
Employed

3.3 Million more people on Foodstamps today, than in January of 2010.
Nearly 1 in 4 Prime Aged Americans not working

If he 'official' unemployment number is dropping considering the above, does that not point to retired age people who cannot afford to retire still working?
25 answers:
2014-10-04 17:50:04 UTC
Baby boomers are aging. The bulge in the population is now over 59. If there are fewer people between ages 25 and 54, then there are fewer workers.

As for the food stamps, that's a symptom of a system where the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer. Many of those people are "working poor"- holding down full time jobs but not being paid enough to feed their families.
2014-10-04 17:53:56 UTC
Part of the story of course is simply demographic. A Federal Reserve paper puts half of the decline to the aging of the baby-boom generation. While there are more older workers than ever, due to increased longevity, better health, and the need to work due to destroyed wealth from the Great Recession, this cohort is still retiring in great numbers....more than 10,000 per day.



That same Federal Reserve paper put as much as 1 percentage point of the decline from its 2000 peak of 67.3% due to cyclical factors — that is, people who previously wanted to work and have no decided to pursue higher education and stay at home parenting, instead.



Be prepared for similar headlines in years to come, no matter the progress on the economy.



The Fed paper estimates a 3.5 percentage point drag over the next 10 years just on baby-boomer retirement.
2014-10-04 17:43:44 UTC
It is impossible to come to that conclusion based on the data you gave. Obviously there are workers younger than 25 and workers over 54 that are unaccounted for in your data. 59 is not retirement age for most American workers. I picked that age because that would be how old the olest workers in your example from 2009 would be today, 5 years later. 18 year olds in 2009, who were in a demographic that experienced much higher than average unemployment numbers in that year and through the recession, would be 23 today and also not accounted for in your data.



You did not provide any supporting data for an assumption you want us to make.



You must know nothing about demographics to ask such a question. Populations measured in age brackets will always be a fluctuating number over different 5 year spans. They will fluctuate over any differing time spans. Are you really this dim, or just pretending?
bmovies60
2014-10-04 17:46:33 UTC
5.9! Just in time for the mid term elections too! What a coinky dink!



Standard operating procedure for this administration.



Past history:



Team Obama Cooked the Books with Unemployment Numbers One Month Before 2012 Election



http://scaredmonkeys.com/2013/11/19/team-obama-cooked-the-books-with-unemployment-numbers-one-month-before-2012-election-jack-welch-vindicated/
?
2014-10-05 02:01:26 UTC
The Unemployment Rate (U3) is very important.



It tells part of the story. One has to look at all the U1-U6 numbers to understand the employment story and also break it down by industry and quality/pay of the jobs created.



One number can't do that. There is no Employment Satiety number.
murky303
2014-10-05 17:14:38 UTC
Since Obama had the metrics for calculating unemployment changed just after his inaguration in 2009, NO unemployment number issued by this administration is reliable. Every one of their unemployment figures is a lie - a "cooked" figure utterly useless for comparison with previous administrations.



In baseball, Obama's unemployment figures would all be "asterisked".
whoyeah
2014-10-06 17:55:07 UTC
It’s Official: President Obama Is The Best Economic President In Modern Times



So things are going much better than you can admit. Sorry you have to have bad news to feel good.
Andy F
2014-10-05 12:13:20 UTC
Good point, which you're probably make for a bad reason -- i.e. to get people to vote Republican in 2014.



The truth is, global capitalism is facing "structural" unemployment, not only in the USA, but also in Western Europe and even China, to some extent. Obama's economic stimulus program of 2009 -- which was a good idea, but much too small -- has softened the impact of capitalist structural crisis on the American workforce, but it hasn't eliminated it.



Democrats, Republicans, and even most "left liberal" economists tended to downplay this problem, because they don't want to get at its source -- modern capitalism itself.



To give the "left liberal" economists some credit, however, they're correct in arguing that GOP-style "austerity" is not going to fix the problem.



Of course, the ultimate problem == which the left liberals don't touch -- is that there is too much capitalist cash awaiting investment and not enough places for the capitalists to invest it, which means that a huge fraction of it goes to waste -- or gets "invested" in corporate mergers & acquisitions, which add nothing to real-world economic production & generally destroy jobs.



Much of the rest of this extra capital gets invested in "financialization" of some sort -- in pure speculation in derivatives, junk bonds, etc. etc. that merely piles up debts for the future, without producing either new jobs or new production. But you can't attack the surplus cash held by investors without questioning the logic of capitalism itself -- which is taboo in US politics. So the left-liberals mostly don't go there.



Where the "left liberal" economists are correct is in pointing out that "austerity" politics -- conservative demands to reduce the US national debt -- tend to make the problem worse. By slashing government spending on poor people, and by taking away safety net programs in order to reduce workplace security and force Americans to accept jobs for lower wages, the conservative austerity mongers are reducing the total income of the "99 percent," and this means reducing total consumer purchasing power in the economy.



In a "healthy" capitalist economy -- to the extent this isn't a contradiction in terms -- the working class and the poor spend huge amounts of money on daily necessities and some luxuries as well. This spending creates a market for what capitalist companies can produce, and feeding that market with goods & services provides opportunities for capitalist investors, big and small.



When you shrink the total income of the 99 percent and reduce consumer spending, however, the markets for what the system produces have to shrink. This shrinkage of markets and consumer demand causes some companies to go bankrupt, forces others to reduce hours and production levels, and shrinks the opportunities open to investors. "Austerity" capitalist-style therefore usually generates recession -- which destroys even more jobs.



-- democratic socialist
?
2014-10-04 20:06:37 UTC
For every 200,000 jobs created 300,000 are lost or people quiting. Many to retirement. So for evey 2 new hires 3 are lost. But in retirement money changes hands.
?
2014-10-04 22:28:54 UTC
Hey I say lets agree with them because that gives them ONE LESS LIE... I mean reason... to grant amnesty to illegals and open up more green cards: "jobs Americans won't do" are apparently being done so WE DON'T NEED THEM ANYMORE! Yeah! GO HOME NOW!
mommanuke
2014-10-04 17:57:24 UTC
So you think Obama controls the population now? If there are 1 million less workers in that bracket, what did he do - kill them all?
?
2014-10-04 17:35:12 UTC
About as reliable as the Obama administration that cooks the books and manufactures those lying numbers.
2014-10-04 17:34:08 UTC
True, but when George Bush was President, 5.9% unemployment rate was deemed fair.
Zzyzx2010
2014-10-04 17:49:13 UTC
As you well know, it's a cooked number that they mangle to make themselves look good in elections.
smkeller
2014-10-04 18:11:18 UTC
These numbers are ALWAYS cooked.



Who ever came up with the notion that presidents control employment or should?
2014-10-04 17:54:05 UTC
What are you talking about? Open your eyes. Where I live there are help wanted signs everywhere. Even the farmers are hiring this late in the season.
2014-10-04 19:56:06 UTC
10 million private jobs added since jan. 2010, says adp.com
GEORGE B
2014-10-05 13:34:07 UTC
Well, Obama did promise to "fundamentally change America", didn't he? Unfortunately that's one promise where he succeeded.

.
2014-10-04 18:42:39 UTC
No one with a functioning brain believes that number
Blockhead
2014-10-04 17:35:05 UTC
well they say it went down because people stopped looking..so heres a great idea..why don't everyone quit looking and then it would be 0
Bruce
2014-10-05 14:58:14 UTC
It is rarely helpful to jump on one statistic to make a point. In the words of Will Rogers, "There are lies, there are damn lies, and then there are statistics."
kelby7670
2014-10-04 18:38:58 UTC
We have to start counting newborns as unemployed. After all,most of them do not have jobs.
Common Sense
2014-10-04 17:45:24 UTC
Any figure from the government is suspect.
Charlie
2014-10-04 17:36:58 UTC
A better measure is GDP growth. 4.6% last quarter.
yutsnark
2014-10-05 10:26:09 UTC
Great news any way you slice it.


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